


College Blues

by movementinthedark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Siblings, Adult Poe, Child Rey, Family, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Might become a series, Teenager Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22382908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movementinthedark/pseuds/movementinthedark
Summary: Poe and Rey drop Finn off at college, and Poe reflects on the things that led him to this point: becoming full-fledged parent to his adopted siblings.Family fluff featuring the Sequel Trilogy trio.
Kudos: 6





	College Blues

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely self-indulgent, but I'm posting it in case anyone else would like some family fluff. Basically, I just finished writing a multi-chap Damerey fic featuring adorable dad!Poe, and I wasn't ready to be done with that characterization of him. Although it's admittedly a little odd to write him as essentially Rey's parent right after writing a fic in which they become a couple...
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> This is currently a stand-alone, but I have a bunch more ideas for this 'verse. I know kidfics are not everyone's thing, so I thought I'd test out a one-shot before writing any more.

Rey’s face had been pressed to the car window from the moment they’d arrived on campus, her eyes comically wide. Poe had to stifle a chuckle when he turned around to glance at her while Finn was collecting his dorm keys from the Residential Life office. She didn’t even notice his attention. She looked even more awestruck than the new freshman himself, although Poe reasoned that Finn had at least been on the Takodana University campus before. It didn’t seem so long since they’d been here last, for Finn’s interview, and minus Rey, who had begrudgingly stayed home with Kes and gone to school. Time seemed to be flying, these days.

The passenger door opened, and Finn slid into the seat. “Got ‘em.” He held up his keys in triumph. Poe privately thought he looked a little nervous, but certainly wasn’t about to voice that out loud.

He followed Finn’s directions, weaving through more of the campus until they arrived at a large brick building. There was a veritable sea of people milling about: students, both wide-eyed new arrivals and obvious upperclassmen in brightly colored shirts, plus plenty of parents and siblings. Poe shut off the ignition and got out of the truck, opening the back door for Rey. She slid out, open-mouthed, still staring.

“What do you think?” He asked her.

“It’s so big!” She turned in a full circle before looking over to where Finn was opening the tailgate. “Finn! Are you going to get lost?” She sounded genuinely concerned about the possibility.

“No, I’m not going to get lost,” he assured her.

“You got lost in the rec center in Yavin that time. Remember?” Rey pressed.

Finn groaned. “Yeah, when I was _eleven_ and had never been there before.” His eyes met Poe’s. “And in my defense, that place is huge.”

Poe laughed, not disagreeing. He joined Finn at the back of the truck, eyes scanning over the rather ridiculous amount of stuff they’d crammed in there. “Are you really sure you need all of this?”

Finn glanced his way. “You asked that before we left, too.”

Poe shrugged. “Question still stands.”

“I can help!” Rey squeezed her way in between them. She’d hit a significant growth spurt since turning twelve, the top of her head now somewhere in the vicinity of Poe’s shoulder. “I’m really strong.”

Finn grabbed a box, and Poe followed suit, deeming it acceptable to pass on to Rey. She took it and glared at him. “This isn’t even heavy!”

Finn snorted, already heading for the building.

“Then you’ll have no problem carrying it upstairs and coming back for another,” Poe retorted, and Rey wrinkled her nose. “Go with your brother.”

She hurried to catch up with Finn, and Poe sighed, reaching for another box.

He caught up with the two of them in the dorm room, where Finn was mid-introductions with his new roommate. “-my sister, Rey,” Finn was saying, gesturing to the girl, who waved before sprawling on the available bed. He spotted Poe coming in behind him. “And my brother, Poe.”

Poe set his box down on a nearby desk and shook hands with Finn’s roommate, who introduced himself as Nines. If Nines wondered about the unusualness of their sibling trio, what with the varying ages and ethnic backgrounds, he didn’t comment.

“Come on, Rey-Rey,” He held out a hand for his little sister, intending to give Finn a minute to get to know the guy he’d be sleeping across a room from for the next nine months. “Can’t rest until we’ve finished unloading.”

“I’m not resting,” she objected, hopping to her feet and joining him by the door. “I’m testing out Finn’s bed!”

\------------

Even with three of them, it took nearly an hour to unload the truck. Poe felt compelled to make sure Finn could at least find the essentials in all of the chaos, but was more than happy to leave him to handle the rest of the unpacking. It was quite a contrast from Poe’s own experience of arriving at the U.S. Air Force Academy sixteen years earlier; all he’d been allowed were essentials. He spotted a familiar jacket as his brother unpacked a few clothes, one he’d loaned Finn two years earlier for a school dance and never got back. Poe hardly minded, and it looked better on the kid anyway.

It took a little more doing to disentangle Rey from Finn’s dorm room and, more accurately, from Finn himself, but they finally made it back out to the curb to say a final goodbye.

“Can I go here?” Rey was staring around again in wonder, momentarily distracted.

“Rey, you’ll be able to go wherever you want,” Finn told her, and he wasn’t wrong. She was incredibly bright. Finn was also an excellent student, as had been Poe once upon a time, but no one was under any illusions that Rey wouldn’t be running circles around the both of them academically. Some days, it felt like she already was.

“Eventually, sure,” Poe agreed. “But one step at a time, you have to go to the Academy first.” That would be Yavin Academy, from which Finn had recently graduated. Poe had gone there, too, although much longer ago. Rey would be starting at the school the very next week.

She brightened a bit at that. Poe knew she was excited, long since ready to move on from elementary. “That’s true. It just looks so cool here.”

“Are you trying to leave me, too?” He mock-pouted, while Finn tried not to look too proud of his new school. Poe was slightly embarrassed to realize that he was feeling a bit emotional over sending his little brother off to college, and he did not remotely want to think about Rey being old enough for the same. _Nope, not going there._

“Nuh uh.” She leaned into Poe’s side. “Not ever.” For all of Rey’s maturity and intelligence, she was also just a kid, and one whose early childhood had left her determined to cling to the family she now had. Poe was entirely sure that she’d _eventually_ be plenty ready to go off on her own, but he’d take it for now. And to think that Poe-from-only-two-years-ago would’ve most certainly listed raising kids as the furthest thing from his mind. 

Poe embraced Finn, and then stepped back, resting his hands on the younger man’s shoulders. “You’ll do great. And don’t forget to call once in awhile.”

Finn nodded, smiling warmly. “I won’t.”

“Finn!” Rey flung herself at her brother, wrapping her arms around his middle. “You have to email me every day.”

“I’ll do my best, peanut,” he promised, and Rey thankfully seemed to accept that. “Listen to Poe, okay?”

Rey huffed dramatically. “Obviously.” She peered up at him. “I’ll miss you.”

Finn smiled, squeezing her tight. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“Alright, _peanut,_ ” Poe said, when they’d stepped apart. That nickname was reserved for Finn alone, a fact he well knew. He got a _look_ for his trouble. “Let’s get going and let Finn get settled in.”

He took a moment to stretch before getting back in the truck, while Rey climbed in on the passenger side. Two hours each way wasn’t a bad drive by any means, but Poe knew he’d feel it by the time they got back. His old injuries tended to flare up after too long sitting behind the wheel. Or in a cockpit, for that matter, not that he’d been in one of those at all recently.

“Seatbelt, please,” he reminded Rey, who had twisted to look at Finn over her shoulder. She complied, but kept looking back as he started the truck, waved out his window, and pulled away, until they took the first corner and Finn disappeared from sight. She turned around then with a sigh, looking out the passenger window instead.

Poe snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “You okay, sunshine?”

“Yeah.” She sniffled.

“Uh uh, no tears.” Poe reached over to ruffle her hair. “He’s gone to college, not the moon.” He got a tiny smile at that and felt victorious. “We’ll see him soon enough.” Never mind that he was feeling a bit melancholy, himself. Maybe if he kept saying it, they’d both remember.

“I know.” Rey sighed. “I just wish he didn’t have to go away at all. But at least I still have BB.” The dog had been Poe’s, once upon a time, but it was definitely Rey’s now.

“And _me_ ,” Poe stressed, mildly put out. “And Kes. What, are we not good enough for you anymore?”

Rey laughed. “That’s not what I _meant_. It’s just… _Finn_.”

“I know, Rey.” And he did. It was the first time she’d been separated from Finn for more than a few days in the eight years since they’d met.

They lapsed into a short silence, and then Rey shifted in her seat. “I guess one good thing about Papa not coming is that I get to sit in the front on the way home.”

Poe laughed. It was still occasionally odd to hear her refer to his father as Papa, although he’d long ago ceased to have any issue with it. After all, he’d been an only child for more than twenty-five years. “If Kes had come, we would’ve had to tie you to the roof on the way there.”

She giggled. “Would not.”

“Seriously.” He tried to keep a straight face. “Where else would we have put you?” The backseat on the trip out had been so full of _still more_ of Finn’s stuff that there was barely space for Rey, let alone for two.

Kes had been just as happy to stay home, although he was as pained to see Finn go as the rest of them. He was mostly back to normal these days, nearly two years after the accident, but longer car rides took even more out of him than they did Poe, and he wouldn’t have been able to help as much with the unloading.

It had only been a couple of months ago, shortly after Finn’s high school graduation, that they’d officially transferred guardianship of Rey to Poe. They all still lived in the same house, and Rey still called Kes Papa and referred to Poe as her brother, which wasn’t really inaccurate. But Poe had been her, and Finn’s, primary caregiver while Kes was in the hospital, and then…then he’d never really stopped. Kes hadn’t seemed to mind; he certainly couldn’t keep up with the bundle of energy that was Rey in the way that he’d used to. Rey and Finn hadn’t minded, either. They hadn’t bothered with transferring Finn’s guardianship, as he was nearly eighteen by that time, but that certainly didn't mean that Poe considered the younger man any less _his_.

“Poe.” Rey shook him out of his thoughts. “Can we get ice cream on the way home?”

The responsible part of Poe, the part that knew they’d be getting home late enough as it was, just in time for the dinner that he’d rather she still had room for, thought he should say no. The part of him that could see, despite her laughter, just how hard it was for her to leave Finn, her brother, the one person who had been there for her through everything for practically as long as she could remember, before she’d known Poe, even, or Kes. That part said _what the hell_.

“Sure, sunshine.”

She cheered enthusiastically and grinned at him, and Poe chuckled at her excitement. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it. Or Finn, for that matter. And not in the way they were when they first arrived to live with Kes, when he’d see them a couple of times a year when he was home on leave. Like this. Every day, all the time, for all of the fun and frustration, laugher and tears, and pretty much constant chaos. 

“And can I stay up all night?”

“Not a chance.” Poe merged onto the highway, and then gave her a look. “Why would you even want to do that?” At thirty-four, the age when that sounded even remotely like fun to him was long, long gone.

She giggled. “I just wanted to see what else you’d agree to.”

“Cheeky.” He shook his head in mostly feigned exasperation, while secretly pleased she seemed to be coping well enough. For the moment, anyway. It might be another story when it was time for her to go to sleep. Maybe that’s why she wanted to stay up all night. “You know, I can still change my mind about that ice cream.” He winked at her to make sure she knew he was kidding. He wasn’t really going to mess with her. Not today, of all days.

“No.” Rey shook her head, solemn. “That would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Oh, you think so?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“I don’t know,” he teased. “It’s just ice cream.”

She gasped. “Poe! There is no such thing as _just_ ice cream.”

Four years ago, he’d been in a fighter jet. Two, alone in an apartment in southern California. Now, he was fake-arguing with a twelve year old on their way home from dropping a teenager off at college. He wouldn’t have believed anyone who told him that he would willingly, happily, move home for good, but Poe was so, so glad he did.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kicking around a few more ideas, in particular the backstory for how this little family unit came to be, so do let me know if you're interested in more of this!


End file.
